(13 June, 2010)-  The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) concluded its first review of the human rights situation in Egypt under the new Universal Periodic Review (UPR) mechanism. The Geneva meeting on 11 June, in which the Egyptian government pledged to implement 140 recommendations presented by other state delegations, took place only a month after the government renewed the 29 year State of Emergency for another two years, in effect suspending most civil rights throughout the country.  

The government delegation, led by Minister of Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Mufid Shihab, exerted great efforts during the meeting to highlight “improvements” in the government’s rights record since the three-hour review itself took place in Geneva last February, and justified the renewal of the State of Emergency by emphasizing the pledge to apply it only to suspects in terrorism and narcotics cases.

Egypt mobilized close allies to stack the list of speakers, occupying most of the twenty minutes allocated to other government speakers and leaving very limited room for any critical comments.  Qatar, the UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Oman and other allies heaped praise on the government as a “leader” of human rights. The UK and US delegations were the only two speakers to express concerns about serious rights violations, including torture, emergency law, administrative detention, violations of freedom of expression and religious and political liberties.

In contrast, civil society representatives from the Forum of Independent Egyptian Human Rights Organizations occupied five out of nine speaking slots available to NGOs, delivering a series of blistering human rights critiques. The NGO statements highlighted a number of serious human rights violations committed by the government, focusing especially on the three months since the UNHRC review in February which witnessed the violent quashing of a peaceful protest on 6 April, the renewal of the State of Emergency, and the 1 June Shura Council mid-term elections that were marred by reports of fraud, security forces’ prevention of voters from accessing polling stations, arrest of supporters of opposition candidates and incidents of violence.

According to Moataz EL-Fegiery, Executive Director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, “The persistence of rights violations demonstrates an evident lack of political will by the government to seriously fulfill its rights obligations. To date the government has failed to take any serious measures to implement the vast majority of commitments it made during the UPR process.“

Addressing the Human Rights Council, Hossam Bahgat, Executive Director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights said “The repeated renewal of the state of emergency and the reliance on its sweeping repressive measures sends the message that the government sees itself and its powerful security apparatus as being above the law. The result has been a pervasive atmosphere of impunity for human rights violations, particularly with regard to the systematic and widespread practice of torture in places of detention.” 

NGO speakers also used their speaking time to refute claims repeated by the government in written and oral submissions to the UPR mechanism. Rawda Ahmed, Director of the Legal Aid Unit for the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, told the Council, “The government still insists that it never uses the State of Emergency’s administrative detention to imprison bloggers. But Moss’ad Abu Fagr has been in administrative detention since 2007. And Hany Nazeer has been in administrative detention since 2008. And Tarek Khedr has been in administrative detention for the past 5 months!”

Ahmed Samih of the Andalus Institute for Tolerance and Anti-Violence Studies, also speaking before the Council, criticized the government for failing to respond to acts of sectarian violence against Christians in Egypt, and called on the government “to engage with the UPR process on a national level with the same type of seriousness as it does here in Geneva. An official plan with concrete and time-bound measures should be publicly declared by the government to achieve the human rights commitments it has made.”

Rahme Refaat, speaking on behalf of the Center for Trade Unions and Workers’ Services, welcomed the government’s acceptance of most recommendations related to economic and social rights, but expressed “great regret” at the government’s rejection of a recommendation to allow for independent trade unions to be established freely without forcing them to join the government-controlled Egyptian Trade Unions Federation.

Mohamed Zarea, Director of the Arab Penal Reform Organization, called on the government to expedite implementation of voluntary commitments and accepted recommendations that emerged from the UPR process, stressing in particular the need to amend the definition of torture in the Penal Code to bring it in line with international law.

Hossam Badrawi presented the intervention of the government-established National Council for Human Rights, which called on the government to lift the state of emergency, release detained bloggers and activists and end discrimination against Non-Muslims.

Responding to speakers, Minister Shihab said the government “welcomes criticism, acknowledges mistakes and tries to address shortcomings” but criticised some speakers for “lack of accuracy or for reaching absolute judgements based on individual cases.” Shihab concluded by pledging that to set up an “institutional structure” to follow up the implementation of the 140 UPR recommendations accepted by the government “with the participation of the National Council for Human Rights and civil society organizations.”

For further information, please contact: In Cairo: Moataz El-Fegiery (Arabic, English)- moataz@cihrs.org, +2012349991, and in Geneva: Hossam Baghat (Arabic, English)- hossam@eipr.org, +41 76 481 1634.